Lourdes

branie

Anyone here ever been to the famous shrine, anmd what's your opinion on it?

strobe

Some nice architecture, the cathedral looks amazing at night, but I've seen much better in France. Paris would be the obvious suggestion.

King Mob

The alleged healings have never been shown to do be real in studies that exclude the possibilities of fraud and or delusion.

Waking-Dreams

I heard of one miracle, where they lowered someone in a wheelchair down into one of the sacred wells and when they took them back up again there was brand new tyres on the wheelchair. :eek:

I have relatives who go over there each year in search of miracles and faith healing. It saddens me because they're nice people but have a blinkered view of certain things in this world.

magicbastarder

as mentioned before - the number of miracles which the catholic church have attributed to lourdes is a fraction of the number of people who would have been killed in traffic accidents on the way there.
so your best bet is be safe, don't go.

Mark Hamill

From Skepdic.com:

Since (1862), the Church has validated 67 miracles at Lourdes (of the thousands that have been reported) and canonized the peasant girl. (Her body, which is on display, is alleged to be incorruptible, but the face and hands, which look so lifelike, are made of wax.) It is estimated that in recent years about 5 million pilgrims a year visit the shrine at Lourdes. Over the past 150 years, some 200 million people have made the pilgrimage. For those who care, that's a success rate of .0000335% or 1 out of every 3 million.

panda100

strobe wrote: »

Some nice architecture, the cathedral looks amazing at night, but I've seen much better in France. Paris would be the obvious suggestion.

The candlelight procession is pretty impressive too If your standing at the very top of the basillica looking down.

aidan24326

Over the past 150 years, some 200 million people have made the pilgrimage. For those who care, that's a success rate of .0000335% or 1 out of every 3 million.

To be fair though, we'd have to assume that only a minority of those 200 million would have had any affliction in the first place. To be 'cured' of some illness or injury is not the only reason people go there.

Though of course I'd imagine the 'success rate' isn't particularly good, and would, as is almost invariably the case, turn out to be pretty much what you'd expect from random chance.

bnt

No way I would go there, no matter what I believed: too many sick people. Bathing their infected bits in the holy water, and all that. You're more likely to catch something new than be cured of whatever ailed you before: fact. :eek:

PeterIanStaker

I have actually been there (long story, was kinda made go) - and I credit it with sparking my scepticism and later full atheism.

the place is tackier than Knock if thats possible.

Einhard

Waking-Dreams wrote: »

I have relatives who go over there each year in search of miracles and faith healing. It saddens me because they're nice people but have a blinkered view of certain things in this world.

They'd probably say the same of you.

Anyway, why should you be saddened? They go over and enjoy themselves, and probably get a sense of fulfillment there.

sponsoredwalk

I was there last year for an evening as we went down to the Pyrenees & Basque country.

It really is a magnificent place in a lot of ways, when you walk through the gates you do get a sense of grandeur
with the magnificent architecture & beautiful walkway but when you tilt your head down
& see all the nuns in kind of hospital attire, old, frail & sick people &
immediately remember why they're here & what it is they've come for.

I really felt that this place had cheated a huge number of people throughout history with false hopes & promises but not necessarily in a corrupt way.
It's extremely tempting to think that this magnificent building harbours some mystical hope, especially when you see all of these people
kneeling at statues, little enscribed messages on plaques, picture after picture of people (probably deceased) put there by loving families,
seeing the massive courtyard from up on the massive church itself & the way the sun illuminates the courtyard is really inspiring.

If you walk down the street you find a crazy amount of shops selling jesus water bottles, of the holy variety, rosary beads, rings, necklaces, shades,
religious paraphenalia, beret's (which I bought!) and all that jazz...

When it gets dark it gets crazy! The amount of people who were out in the courtyard for mass was insane!
It was as packed as a rock concert, if not moreso, with people lining the arches & priests of all nationalities taking a moment to speak to everyone.
I just felt so sorry looking around thinking that this was almost the epicenter of false hope dragging people down for years
& feeding a society in which hate is fine as long as it's not directed at your own f'ing clan.
You can't help but feel terrible questioning "why" but trying not to think in some elitist way looking around at everyone.
I kind of lost it & whispered to my friend who is semi-religious that they are all liars but, you know...
I just couldn't help but get angry & think about the lies these people offer to people with this fallacious promise of health & an end to disease.
It really is a symbol of, & living testament to, the Boorstin phrase,

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance
- it is the illusion of knowledge".

Anyway, then mass ended & I felt worse as everyone else felt great and it was fun :pac:

Waking-Dreams

Einhard wrote: »

They'd probably say the same of you.

Anyway, why should you be saddened? They go over and enjoy themselves, and probably get a sense of fulfillment there.

A sense of fulfilment from false hope and no evidence of results? Some people get a sense of fulfilment from reading horoscopes too. It just saddens me that they are bending reality to their own personal liking. Just because one takes hope from something doesn't make it true.

There's plenty of people who don't believe in religious miracles and faith healing and lead healthy, fulfilling lives. Your attitude of "why be sad over what they believe if it brings them comfort" is common but overall, we do pay a price for a blinkered view of how the world works.

Do you consider that instead of going to see a doctor about an illness, they decided to take out a small loan and trek off to Lourdes instead?

goingpostal

Cynical religious shysters peddling false hope to grievously ill people who probably shouldn't be travelling and would be better off spending their money on medical treatments for their illnesses. A lot like those faith-healing Christian b*lloxes over in the US. They never show the crushing disappointment of the ill people when the show is over and they are just as sick as ever. Just the drooling nutjobs who claim that some invisible disease of theirs has been cured. How come they never show an amputee whose leg has grown back? http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/ My mother was over there lately (she is not ill, thankfully) but she came home with this hymn CD which is an affront to music. I listened to one track of it today and they managed to sing an entire song entirely out of tune. Not one single note was in key!! That must be a miracle!!

My parents are going this autumn. I haven't been but it is a nice part of France afaik.

They are spending time in Biarritz aswell. It's a bit more exotic than their annual trip to Knock.

goose2005

What they should do is bet their travelling fund (say e2000) on a 100-1 bet - then if they won, they could go to the Mayo Clinic or somewhere with the cash. 1% chance of success is a lot better than anything Maria-Bernada Sobirós might do for you.

komodosp

Was there a few years ago as my friend was living in Tarbes, which is close by and since we were getting a train that passed Lourdes, we thought we'd drop in.

It's the cheesiest, tackiest place ever to call itself religious. Nothing but gift shops, and those kinds of gimmicks. Fairly disappointing I would say, if I had been in any way religious. Even the main building on the way in reminds me more of the castle in the middle of Disneyland than anything serene or supposedly holy.

number10a

It is the tackiest place I have ever been to and the most neon-infested area on Earth outside of Las Vegas. I went there just for the novelty of going to Lourdes cos I saw signs for it on the motorway.

The thing that impressed shocked me though was some big gaudy golden crown sitting on top of one of the domes of the basilica. Guess where it came from...... we gave it to the French in 1924 to thank them for all their help down through the years at gaining us independence. Now, doesn't that tell you who the tackiest people in Europe are!! And that the French got a really raw deal.

toiletduck

PeterIanStaker wrote: »

the place is tackier than Knock if thats possible.

:eek: I would have thought that impossible! The cafe with the statue of Mary in the window holding the menu up was the best thing I saw on any of my trips there.

Kiwi in IE

I was going to start a new thread but found this old one.

68 'Miraculous healings occurred in the 'holy water' at Lourdes which have been officially recognised by the RCC? Really?

I wonder how much the French Department of Tourism and the Lourdes Town Council give to the Vatican each time a 'miraculous healing' is recognised?

I was aware that people flocked there because of supposed 'apparitions of Mary', but I did not know that people go there thinking they can be 'healed'. I was recently outside the local supermarket and there was a man in a wheelchair sat there with a collection box and a sign that read "send invalids to Lourdes". I find this sick and very sad.

How can this church have the slightest bit of credibility?

Surely the religious must believe that god gave 'invalids' their inflictions anyway. So is it like a curse that can be removed by going to Lourdes?

To me it seems like a sick, twisted money making racquet preying on vulnerable people and giving them false hope.

Sarky

I was dragged there by the parents as a child as part of a holiday in the south of France. Some nice buildings, and I had what is probably still the best whipped vanilla ice cream cone I've ever tasted, but most of the pretty stuff is drowned out by shops hawking religious tat and old people lining up to be dunked in cold water in the hopes that their gimpy knee will cure itself. Tackier than Knock simply by dint of the sheer size of the business built up around it. Don't remember any real numbers of young people there, but I was in my early teens and most people would have been old by comparison. Most were probably there because they didn't have a choice like me.

I do remember a pretty big underground church, and thinking what a great skate park it would make.

Pherekydes

Quote:
Since (1862), the Church has validated 67 miracles at Lourdes (of the thousands that have been reported) and canonized the peasant girl. (Her body, which is on display, is alleged to be incorruptible, but the face and hands, which look so lifelike, are made of wax.) It is estimated that in recent years about 5 million pilgrims a year visit the shrine at Lourdes. Over the past 150 years, some 200 million people have made the pilgrimage. For those who care, that's a success rate of .0000335% or 1 out of every 3 million.

That's better odds than the Lotto. :pac:

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

To me it seems like a sick, twisted money making racquet preying on vulnerable people and giving them false hope.

That's the Tennis circuit.

I went there once, and my missing ball grew back. True story!

sbsquarepants

Over the past 150 years, some 200 million people have made the pilgrimage. For those who care, that's a success rate of .0000335% or 1 out of every 3 million

From Wikipedia

Frequency of spontaneous regression in cancer

It has long been assumed that spontaneous regressions, let alone cures, from cancer are rare phenomena, and that some forms of cancer are more prone to unexpected courses (melanoma, neuroblastoma, lymphoma) than others (carcinoma). Frequency was estimated to be about 1 in 100,000 cancers;[2] however, in reality this ratio might be largely under- or overestimated. For one, not all cases of spontaneous regression can be apprehended, either because the case was not well documented or the physician was not willing or literate enough to publish, or simply because the patient did not show up in a clinic any more. On the other hand, for the past 100 years almost all cancer patients have been treated in one way or the other, such that the influence of treatment cannot always be excluded.
At least for small tumors the frequency of spontaneous regression most likely was drastically underrated. In a carefully designed study on mammography it was found that 22% of all breast cancer cases underwent spontaneous regression.[3]

Seems like for cancer in any case, you'd actually be better off staying away! What is with christians and irony, it sticks to them like shít to a blanket:D

Dades

Went to Medjugorje. Like the Las Vegas of desperation.

BlitzKrieg

Was there when I was a kid (I was 4 or 5 at the time) with family when we did a camping trip around france. I dont remember much at all from lourdes. the best my memory can gather up is eating sandwiches in the back of my dad's range rover while waiting for something to happen in the evening I think.

but I remember the ruins of the bunkers we saw on a beach, the sherman tank outside a tiny war museum we passed getting off the ferry and I remember watching back to the future 3 in the cinema...in french.


So yeah didnt leave much of an impression on me.

Bannasidhe

Dades wrote: »

Went to Medjugorje. Like the Las Vegas of desperation.

What a wonderful sentence. Well done that man!

Hotblack Desiato

http://www.skepdic.com/miracles.html

Anatole France, upon seeing the discarded canes and crutches on a visit to Lourdes, said: "What, no wooden legs?"

Mr. CooL ICE

Went there when I was 16. I had been an atheist about 2 years at that stage. I only went because nobody volunteered when the parish priest visited looking for people. I put my hand up, my friend beside me felt bad and put his hand up too, so the two of us ended up going.

I found it a great laugh really, but kept my antichrist tendencies to myself. There were about 40 teenage volunteers from our diocese altogether and we generally had a laugh. We had a schedule of go to the hospital, get assigned a wheelchair, bring it to mass, go to the back of the building and do whatever you wanted.

One afternoon, we had a few hours off so a few of us found a quiet pub with a spot that couldn't be seen from the street, so we went in and I got hammered on 3 bottled of desperados. It was my first time getting drunk and thought I was gonna die but still ended up pushing wheelchairs that night.

My visit there actually made me militant in my atheism. I couldn't believe the amount of wealth that was there. It sickened me. Like others have said, the amount of crappy souvenir shops was astounding. I did mention to some that I wasn't a believer and that I just wanted to help out the less fortunate, but I didn't really get any satisfaction out of the whole thing.

Oh, and the wall with taps coming out of it as holy water dispensers was... bizarre

Mr. CooL ICE

Oh, another thing I remember... We were told to go to this thing which I had no idea of. It turned out to be some kind of religious cleansing/bathing thing.

Anyway, we were queuing for it and when it came to me, I had two men surround me with a shower curtain thing. One of the lads behind me whispered that I needed to take my clothes off, which I did. I was then nudged towards some manky bath thing and got in (still with curtain held around me), which was fookin freezing. A third guy came over and said something in french or latin and shoved a miniature statue of Mary in my face. I started panicking and looking at the lads behind me in the queue and they said I had to kiss it. So I kissed it, something in french/latin was said and I was led out of the bath and allowed to dress with the curtain around me. No opportunity to dry, so off I went with a damp crotch.

I feel violated just thinking about it.

kylith

I went there on a school trip in 4th year. I must admit to being struck by the serenity of the place, but it was the off season, so that was to be expected. I too was stunned by the amount of tat around the place. If the place is the answer to anyone's prayers, it's those of the manufacturers of Virgin Mary holy water bottles.

Kiwi in IE

kylith wrote: »

I went there on a school trip in 4th year. I must admit to being struck by the serenity of the place, but it was the off season, so that was to be expected. I too was stunned by the amount of tat around the place. If the place is the answer to anyone's prayers, it's those of the manufacturers of Virgin Mary holy water bottles.

UGH! A relative of my son gave him one of those hideous things at a stage when he was really into water play. I think she mistakenly thought that I would keep it safe and attach some manner of significance to it. The carpet in his bedroom has been well 'blessed' and horrible, tacky plastic Mary ended up in the recycling bin!